Like Elvira in A Year With 13 Moons, Tonia, a middle-aged drag queen in Lisbon, struggles with her transsexual identity and aging male body. While her younger junkie boyfriend Rosario wants her to have a sex-change operation, her estranged son Zé Maria hates her for living as a woman. Her Catholic belief also prevents her from going ahead with the operation. At work she is faced with competition from the younger drag queen Jenny.
An undercurrent melancholia free of all sentimentality and a meandering narrative are also reminiscent of Fassbinder’s film.
Portugal 2009, colour, 133 mins. With English subtitles. Directed by João Pedro Rodrigues. With Fernando Santos, Alexander David, Gonçalo Ferreira de Almeida.
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